


More Than Pay

by oddegg



Series: Break It, You Bought It [2]
Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-25
Updated: 2010-09-25
Packaged: 2017-10-12 06:53:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/122101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oddegg/pseuds/oddegg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If dreams are a wish your heart makes, Kurt needs his to stop being so damn masochistic in its desires.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Than Pay

**Author's Note:**

> This is the flip side of [King of Infinite Space](http://archiveofourown.org/works/119944), set a little while after and told from Kurt's pov. It's not an awful lot happier than the original I'm afraid.
> 
> Title is from the poem 'Longing' by Matthew Arnold.

“What’s his _problem_?”

Sam spits it out angrily, and his eyes follow Puck as he barrels his way down the corridor; shouldering kids out of the way if they don’t move fast enough.

Kurt’s hand twitches at his side but he refuses to rub his shoulder; sore where it banged into the lockers when Puck pushed _him_ out of the way.

“Far too many to count” he answers “But if you mean just now, well – he sort of hates me”

He says it lightly; like it’s a joke. Like being disliked amuses him. The sarcasm makes Sam grin at him, move in closer as he had been doing a moment ago before Puck shoved them apart as he passed.

It’s not a joke though. Because Kurt thinks Noah Puckerman really _does_ hate him. He’s forced Kurt up close and personal too many times with dumpsters and lockers lately to believe otherwise, and Kurt’s seen the new curl of Puck’s lip as he looks at him out of the corner of his eye; watching Kurt like he was prey.

After Puck had settled into Glee there had been months that had made Kurt start to think the jock was mellowing. No more names, no more physical threats or ice-cold drinks in his face (or none that came from Puck, anyway). But then recently he’d snapped back into his usual bullying ways. Actually being even more vicious than he used to be.

Kurt hates that he minded, but he does. Hates that part of what bothers him about it was the shattering feeling of disbelief he’d felt when Puck had started up again. But he can’t work out if it’s the betrayal that cuts deepest or the fact he was stupid enough to trust the jock in the first place and that’s what bothers him the most.

Sam’s still smiling down at him and so Kurt looks up through his lashes at his new boyfriend (and oh, how he loves getting to use that word!) and murmurs, “It’s tragic. I weep about it secretly in the night”

That gets him a laugh and a hand cupping his cheek and lips brushing against his in a way that _almost_ lets Kurt relax and ignore the knotted feeling in his stomach he always gets when he thinks of Puck.

Because feeling loathing like that isn’t amusing. It isn’t funny.

It feels like a light, daily wash of acid: one that’s slowly eating down to his nerves as the days pass.

It feels like being scourged.

And Kurt hates it so damn much that, out of all of the people who bully and harass him at this school, Puck’s the only one whose torment feels more like torture.

  
* * *

Kurt thinks that he could cope better with the trials ‘Puck’ puts him through at school if he didn’t keep having dreams where ‘Noah’ made an appearance.

Because while Kurt was a strong, fierce, _fabulous_ young man; who was independent and didn’t put up with any crap and didn’t need any stupid _boy_ to hold his hand (though it was nice when Sam did) – his subconscious?

Was apparently an idiotic, deluded masochist who added up all the looks and the less-than-violent touches Puck gave him during the day and tried to turn them into something that actually _meant_ something during the night.

  
* * *

Because Kurt keeps dreaming about ‘Noah’.

Because Kurt has dreams where it’s ‘Noah’ there with him in the school halls. And in glee rehearsals and in the bowling alley or the cinema or some normal, everyday activity.

And ‘Noah’ doesn’t sneer at him or mutter ‘fag’ at him or push him into lockers but instead looks at him like ‘Puck’ sometimes does in brief, flashing moments. Like Kurt’s someone he doesn’t hate.

Like Kurt’s someone he wants to know, wants to get closer to. Someone he would be kind to.

‘Noah’ is kind in Kurt’s dreams. ‘Noah’ holds his hand and looks at Kurt with a smile in his eyes. He kisses Kurt like he means it, like he wants it. Like Kurt is the _one_ thing he wants and that he’s wanted this for so long.

In his dreams ‘Noah’ kisses Kurt like he wants him; like he wants all the bad things in Kurt’s life, all his suffering, to melt away at the touch of Noah’s lips against his.

And he holds Kurt’s face in his hands and looks at him with such _love_ that Kurt can hardly stand it and he says that he’d do anything – _anything_ – to ensure Kurt loves him too.

And in his dreams?

Kurt kisses back.

  
* * *

  
Kurt knows that he should be happy with what he’s got.

That he has a lovely, sweet boyfriend in Sam and that the fact Sam is also predictable and _safe_ shouldn’t bother him. Should be something he’s thankful for.

Kurt shouldn’t be struggling against this attraction he _knows_ is stupid and which he _knows_ isn’t going anywhere.

In his head Kurt knows that the sweet, loving Noah in his dreams isn’t real and is never _really_ going to be.

But his heart doesn’t want to hear that.

His heart takes every look and deceiving touch that Puck gives him and it betrays him at every turn.

And Kurt hates – hates, hates, _hates_ – that it does that.

Because shouldn’t he be safe from the torment – the torture – that Puck puts him through in his own head?

 


End file.
